Calkins: Nutt, Rebels desperate enough to take risk on Masoli

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Houston Nutt looked into the man's eyes. Well, of course he did.

What head coach has ever taken a player he knew he shouldn't have taken without looking into his eyes first?

So Nutt looked into Jeremiah Masoli's eyes, just as former Nebraska coach Tom Osborne once looked into Lawrence Phillips' eyes, just as former Memphis-now-Kentucky basketball coach John Calipari once looked into Sean Banks' eyes, and so on and so forth.

And you know what they all saw?

Wins.

"He's genuine," said Nutt.

Uh-huh.

"He wants to do the right thing," said Nutt.

Starting now, perhaps?

"I can go to bed at night knowing I'm making a difference in a kid's life," said Nutt.

Hahahahahaha.

It's all preposterous, isn't it? The effort that goes into the entire show, the elaborate fictions that are spun?

Masoli was introduced to the media in Oxford earlier this week because Nutt and the Ole Miss Rebels decided they needed him to win games. Nutt figured Masoli would help him more than he'd hurt him. He decided to take the public relations hit.

Never mind that Masoli pleaded guilty to second degree burglary at Oregon and -- after being suspended for the season for that crime -- was caught with marijuana in his car.

"We were in a bind," said Nutt.

Give him credit for admitting that, at least.

Ole Miss was in a bind. Nutt didn't figure last year's QB Jevan Snead would turn pro. He certainly didn't figure backup Raymond Cotton would transfer.

When all that happened, Nutt asked himself the question coaches ask themselves all the time: "Can I get away with it?"

That's the fundamental truth about college sports. Coaches do what they can get away with in order to win. Calipari knew he could get away with recruiting Banks because Memphis was so desperate to win. Osborne knew he could get away with playing Phillips because of his reputation as an honorable coach.

See how it works?

It's a balance between the level of desperation and the level of risk. The more desperate the program, the more risk it will accept.

When Masoli called Nutt earlier this year asking if he could play at Ole Miss, Nutt said he wasn't interested. He had only lost Snead at that point. He wasn't desperate enough.

When Cotton left, everything changed. Nutt suddenly "wanted to spend 48 hours" with Masoli.

At that point, it was a done deal. Masoli was coming to Ole Miss. All that was left was for the actors in this well-worn piece of theater to say their assigned lines.

So Nutt said that he'd have "zero tolerance" if Masoli screwed up again. And Masoli said he was "grateful" for another chance. And Ole Miss quarterback Nathan Stanley -- who has never been arrested -- said that he "was totally behind" Nutt bringing in Masoli to take his starting job.

It's all so predictable, isn't it? Right down to the media coverage. A columnist for SI.com wrote that taking Masoli proves that Nutt is "certifiably dirty." So that was the expected media hit.

And now it's over. Now Masoli can just play football. He wouldn't be getting yet another chance if he didn't do that exceedingly well.

Just ask Nutt, who's been impressed by what he's seen so far.

"He can escape problems," said the coach.

You don't say.

(Contact Geoff Calkins of The Commercial Appeal in Memphis, Tenn., at calkinsj(at)commercialappeal.com.)

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